LOUISVILLE (WHAS11) – A 19-year-old with ties to a shooting in April 2018, near the Big Four Bridge, is currently participating in the home incarceration program in Louisville.
“I don’t look like no violent person,” Thomas Nelson told WHAS11 during a house arrest check, completed by Metro Corrections officers.
But here is his criminal history.
Nelson is 19-years-old but was 18 when he was arrested. He is charged with assault in the first degree and the possession of a controlled substance.
Nelson was arrested seven days after the shooting and he was identified by the shooting victim, who at the time was a 19-years-old. The shooting was caught on cameras located at the pedestrian bridge.
At the time of Nelson’s arrest, police said there was a bag of suspected heroin in the backseat of the vehicle he was in and a gun was in his front pocket.
LMPD said in April they believed the shooting near the pedestrian bridge was gang-related.
WHAS11 recently rode along with a Louisville Metro Corrections officers while they conducted home incarceration program checks; Nelson was one of those checks.
He talked to WHAS11’s John Charlton about being on house arrest.
“If you can get a chance to get out and prove yourself. Then why not?” Nelson, asks.
He says it is better than being in jail because he can do stuff that he can’t do in jail, like waking up when he wants to and eating cereal.
Nelson didn’t want to talk to WHAS11 specifically about his case, but he did say it was a situation that “escalated.”
He told WHAS11 he doesn’t look like a violent person.
“I am a loving, caring kind of person. I don’t cause no problems,” Nelson said.
He said he was surprised the judge put him on the home incarceration program.
“Everybody should get a chance to prove themselves,” Nelson said.
But he said if he screws up that is when his chance to prove himself is gone.
Nelson is due back in court December 5.
“You gotta look at it. People got a family to feed. People got a life to live. You can’t spend all your life behind bars,” Nelson said.
This is part one of a four-part series from the WHAS11 iTeam called UnArrested. Be sure to have the WHAS11 app downloaded, push alerts turned on to see all four parts.
►Contact reporter John Charlton at jcharlton@whas11.com. Follow him on Twitter (@JCharltonNews) and Facebook.